Come on, ride the train

I took Amtrak for the first time last week (to southern New Jersey), and let me tell you, it was complete heaven. A co-worker of mine once described it as "a civilized way to travel", and boy was she right. The steps involved with traveling on Amtrak go something like this:

1. Purchase your ticket online
2. Arrive at station a mere half hour before your train (and that's a generous amount of time)
3. Print ticket at the kiosk
4. Relax and wait for the train. Don't worry about checking your bag, going through security, if you've packed liquids larger than 3 ounces, yada, yada, yada.
   
5. Board the train. Relax some more
6. Relax. Oh and if you forgot, relax some more. Enjoy the beautiful scenery, sleep, do work on your laptop, savor the loads of leg room (and snicker when thinking about the poor suckers currently stuffed into an airplane seat), buy something to eat in the cafe car. You get my drift?
7. Marvel at how much happier you and everyone around you seems to be when the causes of road rage and the hassles of airports are removed from travel.
   
8. Arrive at your destination.
   

Ahhhh, it's making me calm right now just thinking about it. While riding the train, I began thinking about the other situations I would be in had I chosen another form of travel. We all know about the perils of airplanes. The other option would be driving four and a half hours with no traffic, and up to 6 and a half hours with traffic. The common theme is stress, stress and more stress. Yes, Amtrak is not cheap. It was $216 for my round trip ticket. But it's so worth it. And in the words of a very wise woman, so civilized.

Mommy, we're flyyyyyyyyying!

So I am doing an absolutely horrible job at blogging regularly. Seriously, how do you guys do it? Once I get writing it seems like I just can't stop...but it's that whole pesky STARTING thing that I seem to struggle with. Anyway, I've been wanting to write about something for a while, and I'm surprised that I am only doing it now, considering the amount of traveling I've been doing since...hmmmm...it's been so long I need to ponder it...MAY. Since May I have flown Southwest (the best airline known to man, and I need to write a separate blog entry about that another time) enough to rack up one free round trip flight, and I'm halfway to my second one. Oh and they also include 4 FREE DRINK COUPONS with each free flight earned. Yeah, I'm psyched!

Now, on to the real purpose of this blog...to discuss my feelings on flying. I HATE IT. I really don't know when this happened. I remember being younger and acting exactly like the kids I see every time I fly. They make all sorts of delighted noises as we thunder down the runway and become airborne. Sounds like, "Wheeeeee!" "Ooooooh!", and "Mommy we're flyyyyyyyyyyying!". Oh and the best one: "We're going to see Mickeyyyy!!!" I hear these carefree children, and it does make me feel slightly embarrassed as I clutch the arm handles with white knuckles and say the Hail Mary over and over again until we reach a reasonable altitude. I relax slightly when we hit the cruising altitude, but whenever we hit the slightest bump or sign of turbulance, I again retreat to this position and look anxiously around me. Usually the people surrounding me look very relaxed, either sleeping or reading magazines or books. Meanwhile I can feel my palms sweating and my heart pounding. I desperately look at these people, thinking "how are you not concerned? Why are you not in fear of your life?" And forget about landing...we always seem to hit some freak "weather cell" (I love that term) that just happens to be hovering over good ol' TF Green. This leads to circling the airport, wind, and therefore lots of bumps as we barrel through the clouds. I must say about 1,000 Hail Marys when this happens.

The thing that kills me is that I will arrive at my destination, or arrive home, and thinking about the plane crashing eventually leads to me looking at youtube plane crashes caught on tape. Very smart of me, I know. The whole point is that I find it fascinating that children have no fear of something that can be very scary, and I would love to get back to that point. If anyone has any tips of flying, I would love to hear them. Right now my best option seems to be seeing if I can get some Xanax, and I'm not sure I want to go down that road.

Luckily my trips to Orlando are over for now, but my next project is in southern New Jersey near Philadelphia. I'm going to try Amtrak, but it would be nice to get some more Southwest miles while I can.

Oh...and happy Election Day! I voted today, and I hope you did too!